Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Novellus -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: etchmeister who wrote (3652)	3/14/2007 12:16:55 AM
From: etchmeister	Respond to of 3813

So where did all the contrarians go? Broke? LOL So not to hell in a bucket afterall? PQI forsees NAND flash shortages in 2Q Printer friendly Related stories Comments Email to a friend Latest news Josephine Lien, Taipei; Esther Lam, DigiTimes.com [Tuesday 13 March 2007] The NAND flash market is going to outperform DRAM with possible shortages to arrive in the second quarter 2007, according to Jance Lu, general manager at memory-module house Power Quotient International (PQI). Lu said prices of NAND flash should be able to stay firm amid potential shortages in April. Memory makers who previously saw dampening profitability due to the price plummet of NAND flash and thus transfered about 20-30% of their capacity to DRAM production are the major reason for the potential shortages, she explained. Demand for NAND flash, on the other hand, has kept escalating since memory density in consumer electronics keeps growing and demand from new applications such as hybrid hard disks emerges, she noted. In contrast to the projected upbeat in the NAND flash market, Lu said DRAM prices should only bottom in April due to seasonality and oversupply. Reasonable prices for 512Mbit DDR2 (regardless of frequency) should be US$3-3.50 at either the spot or contract market, she believed. However, she remains positive over market trends in the second half of 2007 amid the growing impact of Windows Vista. For PQI itself, Lu projects the sales proportion for DRAM modules and NAND flash applications to be 35:65. She added in saying that PQI will maintain its focus on own-brand sales rather than OEM business, like some of its peer competitors, and the company's OEM business ratio will be reduced to 30% in 2007, down from last year's 40%. NAND flash sales will be mainly bundle memory card sales for handsets, she added. In terms of contributions from different regions, Lu is optimistic about the performance of emerging markets. PQI targets to have the contribution from China sales to surpass 20% in 2007, up from the previous year's 15-20%. She is also particularly positive about sales from Eastern Europe, given that the region has contributed to half the company's European sales. In order to fuel projected sales growth, PQI plans to add one more surface-mount technology (SMT) line at Suzhou, China to its current total of 10 production lines in both China and Taiwan, according to Lu as cited by a Chinese-language Apple Daily report. PQI currently outsources its chip-on-board packaging works to Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Orient Semiconductor Electronics (OSE).